ZMACS with solid-state power-amps

Stage & Studio ZMACS
1

Hi everyone,

I own an Orange Super Crush 100 which is using a solid-state class A/B power amp.

I have a ZMACS coming in and I would like to use it to switch this Orange head as well. Are there any things I have to look out for?

From my understanding using the normal switching features should be safe to use.
I think there could be problems when having an attenuator connected (there are warnings in the power station manual) - so not going to do that.

I already checked the manual and searched the forum but I was unable to answer this myself.

Thank you

2

Hello,

Yes, you can do this fine. You can set things up so that the solid-state amp bypasses the impedance matching transformer. See “DEFAULT IMPEDANCE BYPASS MODE” in the user manual.

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3

Hi dan,

Awesome, thank you for the explanation and the link to the section in the manual.

—

Any changes that I break the matching transformer if I ever happen to run it with different impedance settings for amp + cab by mistake?

Or will it be only problematic during prolonged usage?

4

Notice on the Orange Crush 100 user manual page it says, 100 Watts @ 8 Ohms, 70 Watts @ 16 Ohms. If you were to connect it to a 4-Ohm load, the power would be in the 150W average continuous (sine) power territory. Yes, this might break your amp and the ZMACS. So you won’t break anything immediately, but things will start to get warm, and eventually something will fail. In a nutshell:

  • Always use Default Impedance Bypass Mode
  • Always keep the impedance seen by the amp either 8- or 16-Ohms.
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5

Thank you for the explanation

I think I also understand now better how everything works together.

:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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